Nicotine Patches

Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Once the smoker gets addicted to it, the addiction is difficult to break. Despite the serious health consequences, smokers find it extremely tough to quit smoking.

When you smoke a cigarette, the nicotine level in your body spikes and your body receives an immediate rush of nicotine. As the nicotine level slowly dissipates and then drops below a certain point, your body craves another spike or “hit”, obviously through another cigarette, in order to relieve this craving. For this reason any attempts to quit smoking can be so difficult.

Going cold turkey or relying on willpower to quit smoking most often ends in failure. However, there are medical aids that may make the task a little more bearable, with the most popular ones being those that supply and regulate nicotine in the bloodstream.

The nicotine patch is one of the more popular medical aids for quitting smoking. This nicotine patch is placed on your skin, which then releases a slow and steady stream of nicotine into the bloodstream. Instead of cutting out nicotine instantly from your system, the patch supposedly helps your body adjust slowly to not having spikes in the nicotine level and wean your body gradually off nicotine. As your body adjusts to lower levels of nicotine, the dosage of the patch can be further reduced, until eventually the nicotine level is almost minimal and your body is finally nicotine free.

The patch is also a very strong deterrent against smoking, because if you smoke while on the patch, you could suffer from a potentially lethal nicotine overdose. However, one common problem with the nicotine patch is that because the patch supplies a steady amount of nicotine into your bloodstream, there is no spike or hit, so that some smokers still crave cigarettes for the hit that cigarette provides.

To quit smoking takes serious effort, but too many smokers try to quit by relying on sheer willpower, which is extremely hard to do. By using these aids such as the nicotine patch and Zyban, you are making it easier for your body to quit smoking and thus improving your chances of success.